Modern marketing methods for Estate Agents and Letting Agents

Have you noticed that your advertising in the paper does not bring in the responses it used to?

– Would you like to get more vendor and landlord leads without any additional advertising spend?
– The great news is the answers are all in YOUR head… that’s right YOUR head.

The world has changed, we are all social grazers now, consuming what we want to consume not what the media tells us too. Over 79% of desktop use being used for social activity, and Google quotes that we are now on average spending 4 hours per day each online socially, yet many of us are still marketing in the old fashioned traditional way as we have always done, yet seeing decreasing return on our spend.

I can remember when my advertising budget for one single letting agency branch was over 70k per year, there was newspaper advertising, Yellow pages, yell.com, website optimisation, regional magazines etc. Eating away at the profit but essential to bring in the leads.

My branches now spend nothing on advertising, nothing at all, that’s 70k straight onto your bottom line, and even more surprisingly, our new branches now when they launch spend very little on advertising, with some having a zero advertising spend for launch and beyond… why? Because they don’t need it.

You see it’s a double edged sword, the beauty of the modern marketing world is also the issue, as organisations still try to solve their lead generation requirement by ever increasing advertising budgets, the world is not looking… TVs are now on demand, cutting out the adverts, even when they are on, the family is surfing the net, watching, reading, listening, consuming whatever they want to, chatting to whoever they want to wherever they are, how are they going to see your advert on the TV?

Billboards, side of busses, street signage… what’s the point, if you look at the passengers in the bus stop, or on the bus, they are also looking at their phones, not your advert…

So how do you reach your market nowadays? Well the answer is to go to where they are, the problem is this means you have probably over 20 different places to put yourself at least, which is no mean task! We find that a successful branch will have around 21 different lead sources for clients, that means locating your clients habits, and presenting yourself to them in the appropriate format for the medium you are working on in the right place at the right time of day too.

On the plus side, most of these marketing methods do not cost you anything but time and knowledge, which you and your team already have in your head. No longer can we solve our marketing issue with a cheque book (oops they’ve gone too!) We now need to invest our TIME into finding our target market, not our MONEY.

So how can you create a modern marketing plan to bring those landlords and vendors to you without any money, just utilising the knowledge you already have?

Well it comes down to 3 things:

Awareness-Engagement-Purchase

First you have to make them aware of you, they may know you exist, if you have been around the town for a while, but are you “in their mind” at the point of needing you? Probably not unless you are reaching out to them, so first you need to create an online plan and implement the strategy to get out to where you customers are, and get to know them or at least let them get to know you. Find them and meet them online where they are looking for answers, trying to solve problems, chatting on forums, googling questions etc. Get out there.

Secondly you need to engage with them, this can be in conversation, monitoring various online mediums and helping, getting involved, it could be social media, on forums etc or through creating content they will read/watch/listen and consume, become the one they learn from, that’s a sure way of helping them remember you.

Thirdly –Purchase its great having lots of engagement and conversation and getting to know your community locally, but at some point you want to make a sale, this is where you create a “hook” something to pull them in. By now you will have got to know them, they will trust you, like you and be warmer to your offers. If you are seen as the expert due to all your great content, then why would they go anywhere else, they know you, like you and you are the expert too.

Most importantly it is about following this process over many different mediums, because you don’t know where your customers are, but follow this rule across various platforms and they will start to find you and come to you in their droves, saving you thousands

Through the Property Academy, Sally Lawson runs courses on modern marketing methods for agents. mark@concentriclettings.co.uk for more information